LIVE LONG AND PROSPERTHE 55-MINUTE GUIDE TOBUILDING SUSTAINABLE BRANDS BY DAN GRAY

The combined forces of population growth, diminishing resources and

increased public scrutiny are changing the rules of the game and—as an

enlightened few have already recognised—no amount of peripheral

greening is going to save the old order. Instead, these companies are

practising real sustainability, moving beyond a world of trade-offs

and discovering better ways to bigger profits by redesigning their

businesses in the pursuit of shared value. csr is dead. Design for

sustainability, on the other hand, looks set to become an increasingly

powerful source of advantage. With his seven principles for building

sustainable brands, dan gray not only explains why, but also serves up

some valuable insights on what to do about it. When the alternative

could be obsolescence, isn’t that worth 55 minutes of your time?

“Will get you on the road to how to rethink your business.”daniel t. hendrix – interface

“Brilliantly thought-provoking.”robert jones – wolff olins

“A real page-turner.”john elkington – volans ventures

“Clear, concise and insightful.”giles gibbons – good business

www.55minuteguides.com

“Sustainability informs every decision we make, and makes

every decision we make better. Dan Gray explains why and will

get you on the road to how to rethink your business.”

daniel t. hendrix, chairman and chief executive—interface

“CSR is dead. Corporate Sustainability is finally here and it’s

asking a lot more of companies and their brands than CSR

ever did. For those executives still not persuaded that all this

‘sustainability stuff’ is for them, this book is just great.”

jonathon porritt, founder director—forum for the future

“Dan Gray may not be Dan Brown, but his 55-minute guide is a

real page-turner.”

john elkington, co-founder—volans ventures

“As Dan Gray argues, more and more companies are seeing

how sustainability must be part of core business, not simply

a token add-on. This short, direct and engaging book will help

anyone interested in this debate to get their head around key

concepts and challenges.”

matthew taylor, chief executive—rsa

“Dan Gray makes a powerful, well-argued case for the need to

build sustainable brands that fulfil their contract with the

environment as well as with customers. It’s the way forward,

and this book shows us how.”

jeremy moon, founder and chief executive—icebreaker clothing

“This is a great user manual for those coming to terms with the

realisation that old fashioned corporate responsibility should

be confined to the dustbin of history.”

tony manwaring, chief executive—tomorrow’s company

“‘Baked in’ sustainability is a completely different proposition

to ‘bolt-on’ CSR. For business leaders who have yet to grasp the

difference—and the enormous opportunities that lay within—the

carefully woven arguments in this book are a great place to start.”

tristan lloyd-baker, commercial director—aerothermal

“A fiendishly handy primer on turning sustainability into a

source of brand and competitive advantage. All you need to

know to get the big idea in less than an hour.”

matt gitsham, director—ashridge centre for business and sustainability

“Dan Gray is doing something very important for the evolution

of the sustainability debate in business. Cutting through the

swathes of commentary that rely on a more technical case,

he speaks directly and persuasively to those responsible for

motivating employees, customers and consumers.”

guy champniss, advisor to havas and the world business council for sustainable development, and author of brand valued

“A clear, concise and insightful summary of where Corporate

Responsibility and sustainability is at. There isn’t a marketer in

Britain who wouldn’t gain from giving an hour of their time to

read and reflect on its contents.”

giles gibbons, founder and chief executive—good business

“A very skillfully crafted think-piece. Dan Gray’s argument that

sustainability equals longevity is brilliantly thought-provoking.”

robert jones, head of new thinking—wolff olins

“A sensitive interpretation of the best contemporary business

thinking and a compelling case for a systems-led approach to value

creation. Dan Gray provokes the kind of inquiry that 21st century

managers must make to innovate and succeed for the long term.”

richard eisermann, former director of design and innovation— the design council

“Dan’s book is a pleasure to read. Easy to devour in under an hour,

it’ll reward you with some great insights into the subtleties of

building a sustainable brand. Tickling your mind, making you think

and bringing a smile, it’s definitely a book to keep close to hand.”

morag hutcheon, design director—quadro design associates, and british female inventor of the year 2006

“You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, as my

grandmother used to say. That’s what I like about this book,

and why I use it prominently in one of my courses. Not just for

sustainable neophytes, it offers refreshing perspectives for the

grizzled veteran too.”

phil hamlett, graduate director—academy of art university, andambassador—the living principles

LIVE LONG AND PROSPERTHE 55-MINUTE GUIDE TOBUILDING SUSTAINABLE BRANDSBY DAN GRAY

copyright © 2009, 2012 by verb publishing ltd

notice of rightsthe right of dan gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

all rights reserved. without limiting the rights under copyright referred to above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the author and the publisher of this book.

notice of liabilitythe information in this book is distributed on an ‘as is’ basis without warranty. while every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained within this book.

chain of custodyall books in the 55-minute guide series are ‘print on demand’ (pod), a model offering significant environmental advantages over traditional offset printing. the printer of this book, lightning source®, is chain of custody (coc) certified by the forest stewardship council™ (fsc®), the programme for the endorsement of forest certification™ (pefc™) and the sustainable forestry initiative® (sfi®), ensuring the integrity of the paper supply chain and that the paper used in printing this book is from responsibly managed forests.

first published in 2010 byverb publishing ltdthe cow shed, hyde hall farm,buckland, herts sg9 0ru,united kingdom

isbn 978-0-9564672-9-4

in memoriam ray c. anderson

WHAT’S INSIDE

1. preface 1

2. introduction 5

what this book’s about 5

how it’s structured 7

3. what is sustainability? 11

4. the business case for sustainability 15

exploding the myth of either/or 17

5. changing times 23

old-world csr vs. new-world sustainability 23

the impact of recession 25

for-purpose trumps for-profit? 29

why look through the lens of brand? 33

6. building sustainable brands 37

brand 101 37

the quest for authenticity 39

a new age of the polymath? 43

materiality is king 47

what does that mean for my organisation? 53

one principle, two dimensions 53

asking the right question 55

why no two strategies will ever be the same 59

building credibility from the inside out 61

that word authenticity again 65

7. what it takes to be different 69

surfing the sustainability wave 69

looking beyond the triple bottom line 75

8. design for sustainability 81

eliminating the very concept of waste 83

mother nature—the great innovator 87

beyond the world of trade-offs 89

9. is your business fit for purpose? 93

the pitch 93

the hedge 97

10. take-home lessons 98

11. brand and sustainability glossary 100

12. afterword 106

1. prEfACE

So, what’s changed since the first edition of this book was

published two years ago? The short answer, paradoxically,

is both everything and nothing.

Slightly depressingly, what hasn’t changed is the

vast majority of companies’ understanding of what it really

means to be sustainable.

The ones who get the concepts and arguments laid

out in this book have got it for a long time already. These

include not only newer kids on the block, like the brilliant

Icebreaker in New Zealand, for whom sustainability is the

very inspiration behind their highly successful performance

clothing business. They also comprise long-established

corporations like Interface—the world’s largest manufacturer

of modular carpet—and British retail icon, Marks & Spencer,

who have long since understood the major discontinuity

represented by the combined impacts of population growth,

diminishing resources, climate change and increased public

scrutiny.

They have recognised the changing frame conditions

within which business is now operating and that their

long-term prosperity depends on nothing less than the

redesign of core business strategy and operations.

1

Meanwhile, by and large, those who didn’t get it before

recession struck still don’t get it now. Indeed, if anything,

all recession has done is to entrench short-term thinking.

And yet…

Everywhere I look, momentum is growing.

Sustainability is no longer the exclusive realm of hair-shirted

environmentalists and pie-in-the-sky idealists.

The idea that creating shared value might be the

great competitive advantage of the 21st century—that,

to achieve lasting and meaningful success, business must

reconnect strategy to a sense of social progress—is rapidly

gaining currency, even in the hallowed corridors of Harvard

Business School and other temples of traditional, left-brained

management thinking.

When the doyen of competitive strategy, Michael

Porter, starts proselytising about a more constructive form of

capitalism, you know it’s time to pull on your track shoes.

The kind of stuff that people like Paul Hawken, Ray C. Anderson

and Jonathon Porritt have been talking and writing about for

ages has finally hit the mainstream!

And for every poster-child of old-world CSR to have

come an almighty cropper in recent times (not least BP,

whose ‘Beyond Petroleum’ greenwash has come back to bite

them royally on the bum in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon

disaster in the Gulf of Mexico), there’s a story of another

major corporation embracing new-world sustainability.

Consider the launch in 2011 of Unilever’s Sustainable

Living Plan, for example, explicitly framed by CEO, Paul

Polman, “not as a project to celebrate, but a new business

model to implement,” based on the fundamental

understanding that materially addressing sustainability not

only offers opportunities to save costs, but is also a critical

engine of innovation and brand equity.

In short, then, the case for building sustainable

brands—and for a book that gives sympaticos and sceptics

alike a quick and easy way of getting to grips with the big

idea and how to action it—has never been stronger.

Don’t worry. Despite the inclusion of new ideas culled

from my blog—plus some older ones, re-examined and

expanded upon in light of putting them into practice with

clients—I promise you’ll still be able to read this book from

cover to cover in under an hour.

I hope you enjoy it.

Live long and prosper!

2 3

4 5

On every facing page you’ll find a summary

of core thoughts and ideas. Try adding them

to presentations or the bottom of your emails

and see if you can start a conversation.

2. INTrODuCTION

what this book’s aboutA lot of people are talking about sustainability these days.

Still more talk about brands. Yet very few people truly

understand either. This book is inspired by the likes of Marty

Neumeier (the brand gap, zag and the designful company)

and Edward de Bono (simplicity). It isn’t meant to be an

all-singing, all-dancing how-to guide, full of detailed case

studies and examples. It’s a primer—a quick and dirty tour

around the massively complex (and yet fundamentally

simple) worlds of brand, design and sustainability, and how

they are converging.

My aims? First, to give very busy people a book they

can read in less than an hour. Second, to focus on the really

important insights, so you know enough to be dangerous,

without having to wade through reams of information.

Third, to get you thinking and talking in a completely

different language about sustainability—less about moral

imperatives and more about hard business logic and the

value to be derived from adopting more sustainable strategies.

In short, it’s about the case for building sustainable brands.

6 7

The goal of this book is simple—to give you

some powerful ideas that will help you to

answer the questions that really matter

when it comes to sustainability.

It’s written primarily for current and aspiring CEOs, and

other senior executives in their organisations and the

consultancies that support them—people who not only have

an interest in how sustainability is likely to shape their business

in the future, but who also have the influence and authority

to actually do something about it. Hopefully, by the end of

it, you’ll at least have a few ideas to get you started on

tackling what are some pretty big questions:

à What does sustainability look like in my (client’s)

organisation?

à Why is that critical to long-term brand and business

success?

à How can I turn sustainability into a meaningful source

of brand and competitive advantage?

how it’s structuredFirst, we’ll look at what it means to be ‘sustainable’. With so

many different terms in circulation—Corporate Responsibility,

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Citizenship

etc.—and wildly differing approaches to the management

of ethical and ecological concerns, it’s hardly surprising that

business, and society at large, often finds it hard to get a

8 9

As we go along, we’ll pluck out seven

principles for building sustainable brands.

You’ll also find them listed on page 98.

You can skip ahead for a better indication of

what this book’s about. Or you can wait

until you reach them and they’ll provide

you with a handy summary.

grip on what sustainability really means. This section cuts

through the crap to get to the heart of what it should be

about (regardless of what you call it) and why it’s critical to

long-term brand and business success.

Second, we’ll explore what it means to be a sustainable

brand in the broadest sense of having the capacity to survive

and prosper in the long-term. Amongst other things, we’ll

look at why companies don’t actually own their brands and

what that means for their search for the authentic voice.

Third, we’ll delve much more deeply into what it means

to be a sustainable brand in the more popular sense of making

a positive contribution to society and the environment.

We’ll look at something called the cr continuum—probably

the simplest way to illustrate how and when organisations

can build genuine brand and competitive advantage through

action on sustainability.

As we go along, we’ll pluck out seven principles for

building a sustainable brand and establishing a meaningful

claim to differentiation. (And, in case you miss them, they’ll

be summarised in a handy set of take-home lessons at the

end of the book.)

10 11

When you hear the word sustainability,

don’t think green, think longevity. It’s about

the capacity to survive and prosper over

generations.

3. WHAT IS SuSTAINABILITY?

As man’s role in climate change has become ever clearer,

so sustainability has become largely synonymous with

environmental concerns—essentially, how can we continue

to grow and develop as a society, without causing irreparable

harm to our ecosystem?

It’s also a term that has tended to be used interchangeably

with the many others—CR, CSR, Corporate Citizenship etc.—

that organisations use to denote activities and investments

designed to illustrate their status as responsible enterprises.

Frankly, both usages get in the way of a proper and

useful understanding of what it means to be sustainable. In

its original and broadest sense, sustainability is simply about

longevity—the capacity to survive and prosper over

generations. In business, that naturally includes dimensions

of ethical behaviour (you’re not going to do very well if your

stakeholders don’t trust you) and environmental stewardship

(likewise, you’re not going to be able operate efficiently if

you’re reliant on ever scarcer and more expensive natural

resources), but it’s about much more than that.

Asking how a business is socially or environmentally

responsible and how it is sustainable should be two completely

12 13

Sustainability is a perspective on brand

and business strategy that inextricably links

long-term success with serving a higher

social purpose.

different questions. The latter is infinitely broader in scope,

essentially: why will you still be in business in 50 years’ time?

Understanding sustainability in these terms makes

it much easier to engage with sceptical business leaders,

because it takes sustainability out of the realm of the

sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, save-the-whale brigade and

into the realm of what they really care about—running a

successful business. What’s more, it fosters a completely

different mindset about how to tackle the issue. Sustainability

ceases to be seen as a separate agenda, and is instead positioned

as an integral part of business strategy and operations.

And that’s how it should be seen. Ultimately,

sustainability is not a discrete function, programme or

initiative. It’s a cultural thing—a fundamental belief and

way of thinking that encourages us to consider the long-term

implications of our actions. (If you’re fond of soundbites,

think of it this way: cr without hr is just pr.)

There are many definitions of sustainability—most

of them pretty lame. The one that forms the core of this

book is simple and it reads as follows: sustainability is a

perspective on brand and business strategy that

inextricably links long-term success with serving a higher

social purpose.

14 15

If people still need to hear the business

case for sustainability, then they haven’t

read enough. It’s a no-brainer.

4. THE BuSINESS CASE fOr SuSTAINABILITY

In some ways, I wonder why I even feel compelled to write

this section. Unfortunately, coming from a background in

brand and engagement, I’ve been through this all before—

obstinate business leaders demanding evidence for something

that was always blindingly obvious (well-motivated people

work harder and deliver better service to customers, leading

to improved business performance—go figure!).

The fact of the matter (as will hopefully become

abundantly clear) is that sustainability ought to be a

no-brainer. Doing nothing is no longer an option if you still

want to be a successful business in fifty years’ time.

If it’s in-depth analysis you want, then take a look at

Chapter 14 of capitalism as if the world matters by

Jonathon Porritt. If you’re happy to make do with the

high-level overview then, broadly speaking, the business

benefits fall into three main categories:

à cost and risk reduction – the most obvious benefits

are derived from savings to the bottom line and better

risk management, through things like waste reduction

and energy efficiency.

16 17

Sustainability = £££ (whichever way you

look at it).

à reputation and legitimacy – further obvious benefits

range from maintaining the so-called licence to operate

to acting as an important tool for attracting customers,

investors and top talent.

à innovation and growth trajectory – less obvious,

but by far the most profound, sustainability’s increasing

significance suggests it as a key avenue for disruptive

innovation, leading to more radical, long-term

differentiation.

In short, there’s something for everyone. However you

derive competitive advantage as a business—be it through

operational excellence, product leadership or customer

intimacy—there’s a case for integrating sustainable thinking

in your organisation.

exploding the myth of either/orI may say that the business case is a no-brainer, but that’s

only really true if you’ve already made the leap in

understanding from sustainability as something tangential

to core business to something that is an integral part of it.

18 19

Sustainability and profitability aren’t

mutually exclusive. Companies like

Interface provide an undeniable example

that we can have both.

The point about sustainability as an increasingly significant

driver of innovation and growth is crucial, because it gives

the lie to the myth that the pursuit of sustainability and

the pursuit of profit are mutually exclusive. Provided you’re

smart about it, there’s no reason you can’t have both, as

proven by companies like Interface.

Its profits have more than doubled as a result of its

Mission Zero strategy to completely eliminate any negative

impact on the environment by 2020—a combination of

efficiency savings, the galvanising effect on employees, a

well-spring of new product and process innovations, and the

generation of a level of goodwill that no amount of fancy

marketing could ever buy.

It explodes the myth of either/or, showing that it is

eminently possible to be both sustainable and profitable—

indeed to become more profitable by adopting more

sustainable strategies. Mission Zero also provides a great

example of what Jim Collins and Jerry Porras would call a Big

Hairy Audacious Goal (or BHAG). In fact, take a look at the

Interface story and you’ll find a great deal of crossover with

these and other themes from their seminal book,

built to last, which examines the reasons behind the

enduring success of 18 companies over more than a century,

20 21

Business doesn’t exist to make a profit, it

makes a profit to exist. Discuss.

and challenges a number of widely held assumptions about

running a successful business.

When it comes to the broader definition of sustainability

as longevity, it’s a powerful handbook and it provides possibly

the most powerful business case of all.

Why should companies aim for longevity? Why

should they build for the long-term, even in a time of

downturn? Why should they put an enduring purpose and

values ahead of short-term profit maximisation?

The answer’s simple—because it pays.

On average, a dollar invested in 1926 in one of the

successful comparison companies featured in the book

would have grown to $995 by 1991, or twice the rate of

return of the general market. Had that dollar been invested

in one of the built to last companies, that figure would have

been $6,356, the equivalent of 15 times the general market

return (some difference, you have to agree).

Those businesses that have stood the test of time

have done so because, whilst they always set out to make

money, it was never their sole objective. In short, counter-

intuitive though it may seem, the single-minded pursuit of

profit would appear to produce less of it than if it is seen as

the by-product of serving a higher purpose.

22 23

Old-world CSr is about giving something

back. It says, “We contribute to society

because we are successful.”

New-world sustainability is about creating

shared value. It says, “We are successful

because we contribute to society.”

5. CHANGING TIMES

old-world csr vs. new-world sustainabilityStories like that of Interface signal a quantum shift in strategy

and practice. It’s as fundamental as the shift from Web 1.0

to Web 2.0, which is a handy analogy to summarise the

differences.

Old-world CSR—what you might refer to as CR 1.0—

is essentially about ‘CR as PR’. It’s a self-contained box for

all the good stuff—a tactical bolt-on to business as usual,

designed to protect and enhance corporate reputation.

Communications are dominated by talk of ethics and values,

and by examples of corporate philanthropy, in an effort to

persuade naysayers that they’re really a kind and considerate

bunch. It’s what’s still practised by the vast majority of

organisations today and—as designer, Bruce Mau, so

memorably describes it in Warren Berger’s excellent book,

glimmer—it tends to make most organisations’ efforts look

like, “an island of intelligence in a sea of stupidity.”

New-world sustainability—CR 2.0—adopts a radically

different focus. Here, sustainability is fully integrated into

organisational culture—a fundamental design value,

designed to challenge and transform existing practices and

24 25

The irony is that those who take action on

sustainability purely in order to protect and

enhance their reputation may end up doing

their brands more harm than good.

shape corporate strategy. Communications are dominated by

talk of value creation, and by examples of how sustainable

thinking has led to major product and process innovations,

in an effort to demonstrate to naysayers that businesses can

actually do extremely well by doing good. It’s understood and

practised by very few organisations, and best encapsulated by

the late, great Ray C. Anderson (founder and chairman of

Interface) as, “a better way to bigger, more legitimate profits.”

In short, the language—and, more importantly, the value

proposition—has changed dramatically and, where thought

leaders go, everyone else will eventually be bound to follow.

The business case has shifted emphasis and organisations stuck

in the world of CR 1.0 risk being left behind.

Indeed, the irony is that those who take action on

sustainability purely in order to protect and enhance their

reputation may end up doing their brands more harm than

good. (hold that thought—we’ll talk about it more later.)

the impact of recession“Can CR survive the recession?” has become a popular

question over the last couple of years. It’s also a misguided

one. The case for practising business more sustainably

doesn’t collapse, simply because of challenging times.

26 27

Car buyers are now poring over fuel economy

figures and CO2 emissions as intensely as they

used to compare 0-60 times.

The only reason this question even gets asked is because so

many people still think in terms of CR as PR. In that guise,

it’s dead, and good riddance to it!

Far from sounding the death knell, recession actually

raises the stakes. Hot on the heels of corporate scandals like

Enron and WorldCom, the global financial crisis—likewise

seen as the result of excessive corporate greed—has only led

to people shining an even brighter light on organisations’

ethical credentials.

In any event, reframe the question and it should be

clear that sustainability makes more sense now than ever.

Can good corporate governance survive a recession?

Can trusted relationships with employees, customers and

suppliers survive a recession? Can energy efficiency survive

a recession? of course they can.

What’s more, there are signs that this recession

(depression?) is providing a much-needed kick up the backside

for us to adopt more sustainable behaviours. Just look at the

motor industry’s charge to manufacture electric vehicles—

everything from the Nissan Leaf to the Tesla supercar—and

customers now poring over fuel economy figures and CO2

emissions with the same fervour as used to be devoted to

comparing 0-60 times.

28 29

How long will businesses survive and

prosper with unsustainable business

models? former M&S boss, Sir Stuart rose,

reckons 20 years max.

Against this sort of backdrop, any organisation that pulls

back from its sustainability investments now is effectively

announcing to the world that they were opportunistic and for

short-term gain—firmly stuck in the world of CR 1.0—rather

than part of a considered, long-term strategy. In so doing,

they’ll be driving the final nail into the coffin of credibility.

What’s more, their steadfast adherence to an exclusively

left-brained, 20th century, industrial-age paradigm might just

be dooming them to failure. Not immediately perhaps, but

within the next 20 years. At least that’s what Sir Stuart Rose

predicted in his speech as outgoing chairman of Marks &

Spencer in 2010, and I happen to agree with him!

for-purpose trumps for-profit?Plenty of other people agree too. Whether it’s the passionate

polemics of Umair Haque or the more sober analyses of

sustainability gurus like John Elkington, economists like

David Korten, or leading authorities on corporate strategy

like Gary Hamel and Roger Martin, a broad consensus is

very definitely forming that we’re living at the dawn of a

new normal—something much more profound than mere

recession.

30 31

The rules of the game have changed.

purpose maximisation, not profit

maximisation might just be the new

maxim for 21st century business.

It’s a major discontinuity—one to cause us to rethink not

only how businesses create value, but what constitutes

value in the first place.

You could call it a perfect storm—the combined force

of population growth, diminishing resources, climate change

and increased public scrutiny all striking at the same time.

But that’s not all. You also have the potentially seismic

combination of the ascent of the Millennials plus—just as

importantly—an entire generation of baby-boomers turning

sixty and wondering just what kind of legacy they’re leaving

behind them (Gates Foundation, anyone?).

It all amounts to a very different set of assumptions,

and signs are already emerging that purpose maximisation,

rather than profit maximisation might just be the maxim for

21st century business.

Take the new forms of incorporation like the ‘low

profit limited liability corporation’ (L3C for short) and the

‘B-corporation’ cropping up in the US—ones that put

long-term value and social impact above short-term

economic gain. Take Jack Welch, poster boy for the maximising

shareholder value crowd, turning round and dubbing it

“the dumbest idea in the world”. Take Harvard and

McKinsey jointly launching the long-term capitalism

32 33

challenge—a competition to find examples that can

accelerate the reinvention of capitalism as a force for good in

the 21st century. Take these examples—and the many more

that exist—and it’s hard not to think that we’ve reached a

tipping point.

why look through the lens of brand?Curly: You know what the secret of life is?

Mitch: No, what?

Curly: This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and

everything else don’t mean shit.

Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?

Curly: That’s what you’ve got to figure out.

Now, I’m not normally one for finding deep philosophical

meaning in movies or song lyrics, but these lines from an old

comedy favourite—city slickers—seem rather apt. From

Umair Haque’s rallying call for business to create thicker

value to my fellow 55-minute guide and CommScrum

co-conspirator Mike Klein’s musings on an age of intent,

one thing is for sure—purpose matters like never before.

When Harvard and McKinsey jointly launch

a competition to accelerate the reinvention

of capitalism as a force for good in society,

you know you’ve reached a tipping point!

34 35

Charles Handy said it best in 2002 in what is probably my

favourite Harvard Business Review article of all time—one that

goes by the fiendishly simple title of what’s a business for?

In it, he makes the profound observation that most shareholders

these days are little more than gamblers, and that to turn

their needs into your sole raison d’être is to be guilty of

confusing a necessary condition for a sufficient one.

“The purpose of a business,” he concludes, “is not to make

a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can

do something more or better. That ‘something’ becomes the

real justification for the business’ existence.” Whilst that may

have been said before, in the wake of the global financial

crisis and other catastrophes, like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of

Mexico, it has a new resonance.

The consequences of thin value—of profit decoupled

from the people and resources impacted by its generation—

have been exposed like never before in our lifetime. It’s time

for businesses to put the organisational why—Curly’s one

thing—ahead of the who, the what and the how. Why do

you exist? What purpose do you serve? If you ceased to

exist tomorrow, why should anyone miss you? Now, some

might call that a mission. Mike labels it intent. Me? I call it a

brand, which leads us rather neatly into the next chapter...

The consequences of thin value—of profit

decoupled from the people and resources

impacted by its generation—have been

exposed like never before in our lifetime.

36 37

6. BuILDING SuSTAINABLE BrANDS

brand 101

Let’s start with the basics...

Simply put, a brand is a promise—a proxy for an

actual or expected experience. It artfully communicates your

big idea—the essence of what’s different and special about

your organisation, products and services.

At least, that’s the view you’ll get from a lot of brand

managers and, whilst they’re not wrong, they’re not entirely

right either. That’s because what you say your brand is doesn’t

really count. What matters is what they say it is—your

customers, employees, investors and other key stakeholders.

Ultimately, brand is a set of tacit assumptions and

preconscious beliefs held by other people about your

organisation, what it does and how it does it—your reputation.

It doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s a reflection of all the

tangible and intangible assets that make up your business.

everything you say and do has the potential either to

enhance or erode it.

It only exists in other people’s minds, so there’s really

no such thing as brand management (how can you manage

what’s in someone else’s head?). The best you can do is

Your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what

they say it is, and everything you do has the

power either to enhance or erode it.

38 39

steer people’s perceptions by ensuring that the gap between

what you promise and what they experience is as small as

humanly possible.

Remembering that sustainability, in its broadest

sense, is about longevity, all this leads to the first principle

for building sustainable brands. For a brand to survive and

prosper over the long-term, it must be distinctive and

memorable but—above all—it must be true.

the quest for authenticityAuthenticity is by no means a new word in the world of

brand and business communications, but it’s certainly

cropping up more and more these days (not surprising really

when you consider the events of the last few years).

The pendulum is inevitably swinging back towards

brands built on substance, rather than spin. That used to

mean substance at the micro-level, emphasising the features

and benefits of a particular product or service. But in a

world where brands now represent identity—a statement

about who we are and how we want to be seen—it means

something much bigger.

It means showing people what you stand for.

To survive and prosper in the long-term, a

brand must be distinctive and memorable

but—above all—it must be true.

40 41

People don’t want to be sold to. They care far less about

features and benefits than they do about what the decision

to buy from—or work for—a given organisation says about

them. They want to buy—and buy into—a big idea that

reinforces their sense of self.

Remembering that your brand is what they say it is,

authenticity is impossible without transparency. The measure

is the extent to which a brand’s core purpose is demonstrably

enshrined in the way that product, service or company performs.

Particularly for corporate and service brands, this means that

authenticity and competitive advantage rest increasingly on the

proper branding of internal culture.

If you’re familiar with UK retailer, John Lewis, you’ll

know the sort of thing I mean. The proof of its brand essence

—that sense of British fair play that underpins its customer

promise of “Never knowingly undersold”—is to be found

first and foremost in the organisation’s foundation as a

partnership, co-owned by each and every person who works

there. Among other things, that’s a credo that saw £194.5m

in bonuses in 2011 distributed evenly among all ‘partners’

at the rate of 18% of salary. Chairman Charlie Mayfield’s

reward for presiding over a double-digit increase in profits?

less than £200k. (Bank bosses, watch and learn!)

Authenticity and competitive advantage

rest on the proper branding of internal

culture—a clear and transparent

demonstration of what you stand for.

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a new age of the polymath?The challenge of creating a truly authentic brand proposition

just got a whole lot bigger. If authentic brands are those that

embody the internal culture of an organisation—increasingly

a reflection of entire business models, not just products and

services—then brand stewards need to broaden their outlook.

Just as authenticity is impossible without transparency,

so transparency is impossible without simplicity. Trouble

is, business is a complex system.

Making sense of that complexity and generating

compelling brand insights increasingly requires knowledge of

all aspects of business management in order to get under

the skin of an organisation as a whole, to uncover what is

truly valuable about its services, strategy and culture, and

to arrive at a brand essence that can be embraced and

operationalised by all parts of the business.

Not only that, it also requires broad-bandwidth

thinking to truly understand the impact of the seismic shifts

taking place all around us—the changing set of frame

conditions in which business is now operating, as highlighted

in chapter 5—and to reimagine these contextual forces, not

as constraints, but as opportunities to reconnect with

disillusioned customers and employees.

Building an authentic value proposition

takes a lot more than brand specialism.

Brands are increasingly a reflection of

entire business models, not just products

and services.

44 45

As UK design legend Richard Seymour argues with characteristic

irreverence in the future of the future, “This is Renaissance 2.

And this time, it’s personal!” And just like the 16th century

version, the polymaths’ prowess as integrative thinkers and

sense-makers will be right to the fore as we seek to solve

wicked problems like sustainability.

Back to Curly’s ‘one thing’ again, what should be clear

is that you’re unlikely to reach a deeply resonant answer to

what that is—an analogue to Google’s “organize the world’s

information”, or Interface’s “not one fresh drop of new oil”—

if you come at it from the inch-wide, mile-deep perspective of the

functional expert. You need to be part management consultant,

part futurologist, part designer, part behavioural economist,

part occupational psychologist, part operations manager, part

HR professional, part strategic marketer, part media relations

expert, even part accountant. Brand specialism is no longer

enough, no matter how strategically you claim to practise.

In summary, the second principle for building

sustainable brands states that sustainability is too pervasive

to be managed along narrow, functional lines. It is the

responsibility of everyone in the organisation and requires an

interdisciplinary approach to strategy and communication.

Deep functional specialism is ill-equipped

to deal with complexity. An age of

discontinuity demands interdisciplinary

approaches to strategy and communication.

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materiality is kingBuilding a credible commitment to sustainability—in its

popular sense of ethical behaviour and making a positive

contribution to society and the environment—is an equally

challenging task.

In a world of sceptical and savvy consumers, old

school corporate philanthropy just doesn’t cut it any more.

People are looking for something more—evidence that

organisations are actually interrogating and changing the

way they operate, not just conducting business as usual,

then seeking to soften the blow. (That way lie accusations of

greenwashing, and rightly so.)

It means that businesses need to think much more

strategically about the actions they take in the name of

sustainability. A good place to start is to follow the principles

of awareness, responsiveness and materiality:

à awareness – Knowing what’s happening. Show people

that you truly understand how what you do impacts on

society and the environment—for better and for worse.

Cr as pr is dead. Businesses need to start

thinking much more strategically about

the actions they take in the name of

sustainability.

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à responsiveness – Knowing what to do about it.

Manage those issues transparently, enabling both

friends and critics to see how that’s shaped your

strategic priorities.

à materiality – Knowing what’s important. Prioritise

action on the issues that really matter to the business

and its stakeholders.

All three are important, but materiality is king. Authenticity

ultimately stems from the ability to see a clear line of sight

between impact and action. Rather than just a bunch of

random philanthropic investments, activities are focused on

issues that are directly relevant to—and most impacted by—

your business’ strategy and operations.

Actions taken in the name of sustainability are liable to

be worthless—indeed can be positively harmful to a company’s

brand and the bottom line—if the underlying principles

aren’t demonstrably applied to day-to-day decision-making

(remember what we talked about on page 13? Sustainability

isn’t about PR; it’s about culture!).

Sustainability isn’t about pr, it’s about

culture. (Hmm... did I say that already?!)

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Amply illustrated by the case of BP, as long as old-fashioned

notions of CSR exist as a sort of self-contained box for all the

nice stuff, it will always be possible for the noblest of promises

and commitments to co-exist with fundamentally unsustainable

behaviours—with potentially disastrous consequences for

the company concerned.

Beyond the thin veneer of charitable giving, cause-

related marketing and so on, your commitment to

sustainability should be self-evident in the very products

and services you provide, and the manner in which you

conduct your daily business. Or, to use the more eloquent

words of Jonathon Porritt, “all actions taken by a company to

enhance its own commercial success should simultaneously

generate benefits for society, over and above those that

come directly through the use of that company’s products

and services.”

that’s what it means to create shared value, and

all this leads to the third principle for building sustainable

brands. Sustainable brands never engage in greenwash.

They supercharge their sense of meaning and purpose (and

hence their value) by integrating and serving those concerns

that are most relevant to their sphere of influence.

A company’s commitment to sustainability

should be self-evident in the very products

and services it provides, and in the manner

in which it conducts its daily business.

Sustainable brands never engage in

greenwash. They supercharge their sense

of meaning and purpose by integrating

and serving those concerns that are most

relevant to their sphere of influence.

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what does that mean for my organisation?A few years back, a friend of mine was waxing lyrical about

his international investment bank’s flagship scheme to

promote clean water and sustainable water use. A noble

endeavour, no doubt. “Just one question,” I said. “What the

hell has that got to do with responsible banking?”

What’s material to a bank relates to its core business—

the supply of capital. Who am I lending money to? Can they

afford to pay me back? To what use is that money going to be

put? What sort of return am I expecting, and how quickly?

What are the likely social and environmental consequences?

In essence, what constitutes a sustainable investment?

In short, they’re the really big questions—the ones

that, had banks bothered to ask them, might have made them

think twice about investing in the American sub-prime market.

Yours, of course, will be different, but they’ll similarly go to

the heart of your core purpose as a business.

one principle, two dimensionsJust to go a little bit deeper, materiality is really there to be

explored along two critical lines. The first is company-based

materiality—that’s to say what are the most prominent

social and environmental impacts (both positive and

What’s material to a business will vary from

industry to industry, but will always revolve

around its core purpose.

54 55

negative) of your activities as a company. At a minimum,

sustainability strategy should be focused on addressing

impacts directly related to your sphere of operations (as

described above). Better yet, sustainability should be a

fundamental design value underpinning business strategy

and culture, such that your core products and services are

geared towards creating value both for the business and for

society in one and the same act.

The second dimension is market-based materiality—

i.e. what your customers most care about. That goal of

creating shared value should also see efforts focused on

making a positive impact on the issues and concerns

considered of greatest importance to society in the specific

markets in which you operate.

asking the right questionReally understanding these two dimensions of materiality—

especially the latter—is key to creating value through action on

sustainability. Imagine a mobile phone operator, for example—

one based in the Middle East, where the extraordinary

prevalence of chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes and

coronary heart disease is a major concern for society.

There are two sides to materiality—the

social and environmental impact of what

you do, and the issues that people most care

about in the markets in which you operate.

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Now imagine that, instead of starting from an old-world CSR

mindset and lobbing a big wedge of cash at a healthcare charity,

you ask yourself a different—and much more material—kind

of question. How might we unleash the power of mobile

devices and applications to actually improve access to—

and delivery of—healthcare services?

What might that look like?

Easier access to health and fitness advice? Medical

consultations via video conferencing, so people in remote

communities don’t have to travel for days to see a doctor in

the big city? Medical information being sent on by the

emergency services, en route to hospital, to help surgical

team prepare? Health centres using mobile applications to

monitor and manage drug inventories, and dispense drugs

more accurately? Telemedicine services, enabling people

to track key health indicators—blood pressure, blood sugar,

lung function etc.—so that they can self-manage chronic

conditions and improve their quality of life?

The list goes on and on—all examples of how it’s

perfectly possible to create shared value and supercharge

your brand’s sense of meaning and purpose by directing your

core capabilities towards delivering social progress.

properly exploring materiality—especially

the market-based dimension—can create

short-term value by unlocking ideas for new

products and services.

58 59

Of course, the real mind-bender in all of this is that creating

this kind of value in the short-term is actually dependent on

adopting a much more long-term orientation—a different

kind of mindset that views sustainability not as a leading

measure of activity (at arm’s length from core business), but

as a lagging measure of the cumulative, long-term impact

of everything you do.

why no two strategies will ever be the sameThe two dimensions of materially dictate the consideration of

a combination of factors that will always vary from business

to business and market to market. Whilst the basic principle

remains constant, its embodiment in strategy and execution

is necessarily different in each case. Much to the chagrin of

people who’d prefer you to just pull down a nice, neat

cookbook solution from the shelf labelled ‘Best Practice’, the

fact is that no two strategies will ever be identical.

In summary, the fourth principle for building sustainable

brands states that the precise meaning of sustainability to any

given organisation is context specific, based on the nature of

its activities and the markets in which it operates. Because of

that, the first step in any process of strategy formulation should

be to figure out, “What does sustainability mean to us?”

The precise meaning of sustainability to any

given organisation is context specific. The first

step in any process of strategy formulation

should be to ask, “What does sustainability

mean to us?”

60 61

building credibility from the inside outWhen it comes to action on sustainability, things are

generally broken down into four key areas of activity.

à workplace – Essentially the employer brand space.

How does your core purpose translate into the deal

on offer for current and prospective employees?

(A subject, by the way, that’s worthy of an entire

55-minute guide all to itself—brand and talent)

à marketplace – How you manage relationships with

customers and suppliers along the value chain,

including to what extent you lead their behaviours

on sustainability.

à community – How what you do, and how you do it,

makes a positive contribution to society in the

communities in which you operate.

à environment – How what you do, and how you do it,

protects, conserves and (ideally) restores natural

resources, and addresses the issue of climate change.

A credible commitment to sustainability

can only be built from the inside out.

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WORKPLACE

MARKETPLACE

COMMUNITY

ENVIRONMENT

A CREDIBLE COMMITMENT TOSUSTAINABILITY CAN ONLY BEBUILT FROM THE INSIDE OUT

64 65

Often, these are represented as a set of interconnected jigsaw

pieces, each given equal weight. A much more helpful way of

looking at it, though, is as a series of concentric circles, with

workplace at the centre, radiating out to environment.

Why? Because credibility depends on working from the

inside out. Until you can demonstrate how sustainable thinking

is embedded in your own organisation and along the value

chain, what licence do you have to talk about anything else?

that word authenticity againRemember what we talked about in chapter 6—how the

authenticity of a brand stems from the proper branding of

internal culture? Well, this is no different.

Take Whole Foods for example. If you think their

sustainability credentials begin and end with stocking natural,

organic products in their stores then think again. Scratch

beneath the surface, as Gary Hamel does in the future of

management, and you’ll find that their commitment to

community goes way deeper than that, and it starts with

the way it treats its own people. Consider, for example, the

level of autonomy granted to staff to actually choose what

to stock in their store. Consider their peer-based selection

process that puts hiring decisions in the hands of those

Whole foods’ commitment to sustainability

isn’t just built on stocking natural, organic

products. It’s systemic, and it starts with

the way they treat their own people.

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who’ll be most affected by them. And perhaps most

strikingly of all, consider a salary differential of just 19:1

between the highest paid and the company average—that

versus a ratio of over 400:1 in your average Fortune 500

company (and presumably rather higher at your average

investment bank!).

Even leaving aside these issues of culture and

organisational design, what business does a bank have—and

what value can it expect to create—talking about sustainable

water use if it hasn’t first dealt with the infinitely more

material issue of responsible lending? (Even beyond that,

there are much more relevant community concerns to a

bank’s core business, such as the impact of debt on society.)

What this should help to illustrate is the fifth principle

for building sustainable brands. A credible commitment

to sustainability starts with embedding it in core business

operations, and throughout the value cycle. Leapfrogging

straight to community and environmental investments is

only likely to label efforts as tactical and a bolt-on.

Leapfrogging straight to community and

environmental investments is only likely to

label efforts as tactical and a bolt-on.

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7. WHAT IT TAKES TO BE DIffErENT

surfing the sustainability waveIn his excellent book, zag, Marty Neumeier talks about the

importance of riding waves in creating powerful, charismatic

brands—harnessing trends to generate a sense of raw,

youthful energy. There can be few bigger waves right now

than sustainability. Yet, whilst many leading corporations

have sought to ride that wave, few have succeeded in

establishing a credible claim to market leadership.

To help diagnose why, it’s time to unleash the

cr continuum—a simple framework that unpacks the

transition from CR 1.0 to CR 2.0 into more bite-size steps

and enables you to visualise where an organisation’s strategy

positions it in the broader scheme of things.

What’s really important to notice is the motivation

driving behaviour at each stage, and where responsibility for

the agenda typically sits within the organisation.

This is the substance behind the spin. It’s key because,

whilst many organisations like to big themselves up as

champions of sustainability, few have any real understanding

of what it takes to occupy that space with any credibility.

Whilst many leading corporations have

sought to ride the sustainability wave,

very few have succeeded in establishing

sustainability as a meaningful source of

advantage.

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THE CR CONTINUUM FRAMEWORKIS A GREAT WAY OF DETECTING

AND AVOIDING GREENWASH

LEVEL ONEAchieving compliance

MOTIVATIONAvoiding negativeconsequences ofnon-compliance

APPROACHDriven by legal. Doing the minimumnecessary to maintainlicence to operate

LONGEVITYInitiatives stop iflegal requirementschange or fall away

MOTIVATIONBenefits to internaland public image

APPROACHDriven by PR. Specific initiatives designedto protect andenhance reputation

LONGEVITYInitiatives stop ifpublic or employeeinterest changeor fall away

MOTIVATIONMinimising negativeimpacts of existingbusiness model

APPROACHOwned by CRdepartment. Searchfor balance betweeneconomic, ethicaland ecologicaldemands (triplebottom line)

LONGEVITYMay survive loss ofinterest, providedbusiness caseremains sound

MOTIVATIONIdentifying opportunities fordisruptive innovationand shared valuecreation

APPROACHOwned by everyone.Sustainability adoptedas fundemental designvalue, integral toculture and strategy(triple top line)

LONGEVITYFocus only modifiesto align with newparadigms

MOTIVATIONSustainability seenas global imperative

APPROACHOwned by everyone.Looking beyond ownbusiness to engageothers in moving upthe Continuum

LONGEVITYLimited only by other organisations’commitment todevelopment

LEVEL TWOWindow dressing

LEVEL THREEBeing less bad

LEVEL FOURA force for good

LEVEL FIVEGlobal thought leader

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Where most organisations go wrong is that their rhetoric

simply doesn’t match the reality. Feeling under pressure to

communicate a clear stance on ethical and environmental

issues, they succumb to the temptation of the quick fix.

Ambitious targets and headline-grabbing initiatives

are launched, accompanied by all the usual PR bull and the

CEO’s big speech about ‘leading the way’. Trouble is, whilst

the language might position them at Level Four or Five on

the cr continuum, more often than not, the reality is firmly

rooted at Level Two or Three, and that’s a sure-fire recipe for

accusations of greenwash.

Remembering the changes described earlier in chapter 5,

companies need to wake up and smell the fairtrade coffee.

Their claims are being subjected to unprecedented levels of

scrutiny. The authenticity gap will be found out, and any claim

that doesn’t stand up to closer examination will end up doing

the brand more harm than good.

Many more companies will learn the hard way that it’s

better to do then say when it comes to sustainability, and

that brings us to the sixth principle for building sustainable

brands—one exemplified by sustainability thought leaders

like Interface and Marks & Spencer. A credible commitment to

sustainability is built on achievement, not statements of intent.

people have turned their BS detectors up to

eleven. Your claims are being subjected to

unprecedented scrutiny, and if they don’t

stack up, you’ll end up doing your brand

more harm than good. (Just ask Tony

Hayward of Bp!)

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Sustainable brands illustrate progress towards a clear, long-

term vision, backed up by meaningful proof points.

If you haven’t got that far yet, then go back to the

principles of awareness, responsiveness and materiality.

Communicate what you’re doing to understand your impacts

on society and the environment. Publish your audit.

Demonstrate your commitment to an open dialogue with

friends and critics about the next steps.

In short, the moral of the story is more haste, less speed.

Take the time to do things properly. There are plenty of ways to

generate goodwill without rushing into superficial, big budget

initiatives that’ll just end up being counterproductive.

looking beyond the triple bottom lineAs every man and his dog looks to stake his ethical and

ecological credentials, the simple truth is that old-world

CSR is meaningless as a source of advantage. It’s just a

hygiene factor.

Why? Because it’s only interested in making the existing

business model appear less bad. The ‘giving something back’

mindset pays little or no heed to what you take in the first

place. This leaves the underlying model fundamentally

unchanged, offering little or no ground for differentiation

Old-world CSr is meaningless as a source

of advantage. It’s nothing more than a

hygiene factor.

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beyond subjective arguments over the sincerity of companies’

commitments and who’s ‘doing it better’ (arguments that are

always going to be very difficult and expensive to try and win).

The key to being different—really different—is to

make the transition from Level Three to Level Four on the

cr continuum. This is where companies begin to ask a

completely different kind of question—not, “What can I do

to shore up the old order?” but, “what can i do to shape a

new one?”

This is what truly distinguishes market leading,

sustainable brands—whether that’s industrial behemoths like

Interface completely transforming its petrochemical intensive

business in pursuit of zero impact on the environment;

whether it’s a comparative new kid on the block like

performance clothing brand, Icebreaker, taking inspiration

from Mother Nature to create a totally new market segment

and stand out from the synthetic competition; or whether its

a regional brewer in the idyllic Suffolk countryside, Adnams,

building its new distribution centre with a sedum roof (and

a host of other ground-breaking features), not only avoiding

inflicting the usual eyesore on locals, but also contributing to

a marketing first—the uk’s first ever carbon neutral beer!

radical differentiation and competitive

advantage depend on new business models

that emphasise doing good, not just shoring

up the old model by making it less bad.

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RADICAL DIFFERENTIATION ONLY COMESWHEN SUSTAINABILITY IS ADOPTEDAS A FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN VALUE

LEVEL ONEAchieving compliance

CR 2.0Design for sustainabilityis the next greatcompetitive advantage

LEVEL TWOWindow dressing

LEVEL THREEBeing less bad

LEVEL FOURA force for good

LEVEL FIVEGlobal thought leader

KEY TRANSITION

CR 1.0Old-world CSR has alreadybecome nothing more than a hygiene factor

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8. DESIGN fOr SuSTAINABILITY

What the previous chapter boils down to is our seventh and

final principle for building sustainable brands. being less

bad is not the same as being good. Sustainability is only

a meaningful and lasting source of competitive advantage

when adopted as a fundamental design value that challenges

existing practices and paves the way for disruptive innovation.

As a starting point, consider this brilliant question

posed by Marty Neumeier in the designful company.

à Imagine a future in which you were legally obliged to

take back every product you ever made. How might

that change your behaviour?

Personally, I think that’s genius, not least as it instantly frames

sustainability as a matter of core business and culture, rather

than old-fashioned, arm’s-length philanthropy. What makes

me chuckle about it, though, is that it’s a question verging on

the rhetorical. It doesn’t take a brain the size of a planet to

figure out the kinds of things that might entail—just the

cojones to ditch most of what you learned in B-school and

take the path less travelled.

Imagine a future in which you were legally

obliged to take back every product you

ever made. How might that change your

behaviour?

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For a more comprehensive picture of what it means to design

for sustainability, it’s well worth checking out the living

principles—a terrific framework inspired by Adam Werbach’s

book, strategy for sustainability. For now, though, let’s

focus on two aspects that, for me, offer the most promising

avenues for business transformation.

eliminating the very concept of wastePerhaps the single most important design principle—and the one

that speaks loudest to the inner operational efficiency geek in

every manager—is the goal of driving out waste. Not reducing

waste, mind you, but eliminating it as a concept.

Waste doesn’t exist in the natural world. The waste

from one part of the system simply becomes food for another,

and that’s the blueprint. In a world of diminishing resources

and rocketing oil prices, cheap can no longer go hand-in-hand

with disposable. Natural assets need to be made to sweat

infinitely harder by the use of cradle to cradle design—

products, packaging and indeed entire business models that

are built around smart choices about material inputs and

how these can be given life beyond life by maintaining

them in a closed loop.

‘Waste equals food’ is a fundamental law

of nature, and a key principle of design for

sustainability.

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In the new capitalist manifesto, Umair Haque neatly

describes the mindset shift as a move from value chains to

value cycles—from economies of scale to economies of cycle,

whereby each cycle not only reduces the average cost of

materials, but also effectively amortises and offsets the fixed

costs of production.

Sounds great, right? And these are the kinds of

questions you need to ask yourself:

à material inputs – How might you redesign products

and processes to reduce the amount and types of

materials used? Do you have a means to assess whether

those inputs are cyclable so that material waste is no

longer waste, but the food for another process? Could

your raw materials come from someone else’s waste

(or your waste become someone else’s raw material)?

à longevity and modularity – What’s the expected

lifespan of your product? How easily can it be

repaired, updated or put to alternative use? How

easily can it be disassembled, and waste streams

separated to aid their repurposing and reuse?

In a world of diminishing resources, the

market leading businesses of tomorrow

will be the ones that succeed in replacing

value chains with value cycles.

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à closing the loop – How can you make use of reverse

logistics to reclaim discarded outputs and turn them into

new inputs? How close are the points of production and

consumption? Can these distances be shortened to

further increase the efficiency of your value cycle?

mother nature—the great innovatorwaste equals food is by no means the only thing we can

learn from Mother Nature. After 3.8 billion years of evolution,

there probably isn’t a single design challenge that hasn’t

already been efficiently and elegantly solved in the natural

world, and that’s the basic premise underlying biomimicry—

the burgeoning field of nature-inspired innovation popularised

by the work of Janine Benyus. Her ask nature online database

just goes to show the rich seam of innovative ideas that is there

to be mined, if we only take time to look. Here are just three...

à The merino wool fibre is a remarkable thing, helping

sheep in the New Zealand alps to stay warm in winter

and cool in summer. A perfect, sustainable alternative,

then, to synthetic outdoor performance clothing—an

epiphany upon which Jeremy Moon, CEO of Icebreaker,

has successfully built a $multi-million business.

After 3.8 billion years of evolution, there

probably isn’t a single design challenge that

hasn’t already been efficiently and elegantly

solved in the natural world.

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à Sharklet™ mimics the microbe-resistant properties of

sharkskin. A distinct nano-scale pattern—put into

adhesive-backed film and manufactured into medical

devices—inhibits bacteria growth without the need

for harsh chemicals and biocides that have made

bacteria stronger and contributed to the rise in

antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA.

à Inspired by the fog-gathering technique of the Namib

desert beetle, the Dew Bank Bottle is being designed

to harvest water from the air, where fresh drinking

water is scarce. Resembling the beetle’s body, the

domed steel structure is placed outside at night. In

the morning, when the surrounding air begins to warm,

water droplets condense and are channelled down

ridges in the surface to collect in an enclosed chamber

for drinking water. (Genius!)

beyond the world of trade-offsFor too long, the great Achilles’ heel of green marketing has

been a value proposition that demands customers pay a

premium for more socially responsible and/or more eco-friendly

performance. In that world, sustainable products and services

As long as customers are asked to pay a

substantial premium for more socially

responsible and eco-friendly performance,

products and services will only ever appeal

to a well-to-do niche.

90 91

will only ever appeal to a well-to-do niche who are prepared

to make such a trade-off.

I focus on the two strands above—the re-imagining

of business systems as value cycles and nature-inspired

innovation—for good reason, and that’s because they move

us into completely different territory, recasting the value

disciplines of operational excellence and product leadership

for the 21st century.

The beauty of re-imagining businesses as value cycles, such

as Interface is doing with its ReEntry service, and Patagonia with

Common Threads, is that you eventually end up with a totally

different and infinitely more compelling value proposition—

superior sustainable performance at a cost that is equivalent to

or even lower than the unsustainable alternative.

Similarly, the beauty of nature-inspired innovation, is

that it presents the opportunity develop sustainable products

and services that actually outperform their unsustainable

rivals. Icebreaker gear doesn’t command a premium price

point just because it’s ‘green’. It does so because it’s a better

product. It insulates every bit as well as the synthetic

competition, but with the added advantage that it feels great

against your skin and it doesn’t leave you humming like a

nuclear reactor when you take it off after a run!

Generating mass market appeal requires

sustainable products to at least match (and

preferably outperform) their unsustainable

rivals across all dimensions of value. Only

then can their eco-credentials stand out as a

genuine differentiator.

92 93

9. IS YOur BuSINESS fIT fOr purpOSE?

On that note, it’s probably about time we wrapped things

up—after all, our 55 minutes must be running out by now.

Let’s close with a quick elevator pitch to round up the basic

argument of this book. It runs something like this...

the pitchbrand. design. sustainability. If these words don’t already

loom large in the lexicon of your boardroom, then they

should. Given the values shift we are already seeing as a

result of the global financial crisis, they are increasingly

important lenses through which to view innovation, value

creation and business transformation.

Why? Because the consequences of thin value—

of profit decoupled from the people and resources impacted

by its generation—have been exposed like never before in

our lifetime. In order to rebuild credibility, demonstrate

relevance and achieve lasting and meaningful differentiation,

the big challenge facing corporations today is how to deliver

thicker value.

If the words brand, design and sustainability

don’t already loom large in your boardroom,

then they should. They are increasingly

important lenses through which to view

innovation, value creation and business

transformation.

94 95

à thick value means uniting all stakeholders around

a clear sense of purpose. More than ever before, the

organisation that wants to achieve long-term success

must earth itself in a sure sense of why it exists, what it

stands for, and why it matters. And that purpose must

be seen to guide congruent actions and behaviours.

That’s strategic branding.

à thick value means connecting brand and business

strategy to a higher social purpose—not taking

‘business as usual’ for granted and merely minimising

the unfortunate side effects, but rather seeking to

maximise the primary effects of what you do. creating

shared value by directing core competencies towards

delivering social progress is what real sustainability is

all about, and (according to the likes of Michael Porter)

it’s the next great competitive advantage.

à thick value means being authentic—ensuring that this

strategic intent is self-evident in the very products and

services you provide, how you organise yourself, and how

you conduct your daily business. In other words, it has

to be baked into everything you do—by design.

The big challenge facing corporations today

is how to deliver thicker value—building a

value proposition that is purpose-driven,

beneficial to society, and self-evident in

everything you do.

96 97

the hedge If all of this seems a bit rich—or maybe you’re inclined to

buy into it, but you’re waiting for more definitive proof

before you commit to action—think about it this way.

If you make the leap and open your mind to the

possibilities, and this whole thesis is wrong, what have you

really lost? If climate change was revealed to be a complete

myth tomorrow, would it still make sense to pursue energy

efficiency and more renewable energy sources?

you bet it would!

Conversely, if you choose to ignore the signs, and this

thesis is right, by the time your longed-for definitive proof

arrives, the chances are you’ll already have been

outcompeted. (As those smart cookies over at Google say,

better to disrupt yourself than to wait for someone else to

come along and do it for you!)

Ultimately, it’s a bit like pascal’s wager.

Whether or not you truly believe in any of this

sustainability stuff is actually immaterial. It still makes logical

sense to act as if you do—because the consequence of

betting the wrong way could be obsolescence!

Like pascal’s Wager, whether or not you

agree with the contents of this book, it still

makes logical sense to act as if you do.

98 99

à The precise meaning of sustainability to any given

organisation is context specific, based on the nature

of its activities and the markets in which it operates.

Because of that, the first step in any process of strategy

formulation should be to ask, “What does sustainability

mean to us?”

à A credible commitment to sustainability starts with

embedding it in core business operations, and

throughout the value cycle. Leapfrogging straight

to community and environmental investments is only

likely to label efforts as tactical and a bolt-on.

à A credible commitment to sustainability is built on

achievement, not statements of intent. Sustainable

brands emphasise progress towards a clear, long-term

vision, backed up by meaningful proof points.

à being less bad is not the same as being good.

Sustainability is only a meaningful and lasting source

of competitive advantage when adopted as a

fundamental design value that challenges existing

practices and paves the way for disruptive innovation.

10. TAKE-HOME LESSONS

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind tour so—in case you missed

them—here’s a quick recap on the seven principles for

building sustainable brands.

à For a brand to survive and prosper over the long-term,

it must be distinctive and memorable but, above all,

it must be true. Particularly for corporate and service

brands, authenticity rests on the proper branding of

internal culture.

à Sustainability is too pervasive to be managed along

narrow, functional lines. It is the responsibility of

everyone in the organisation and requires an

interdisciplinary approach to strategy and

communications.

à Sustainable brands never engage in greenwash.

They supercharge their sense of meaning and purpose

(and hence their value) by integrating and serving

those concerns that are most relevant to their

sphere of influence.

100 101

corporate responsibility (cr) – alternative to csr (see

below) that, in dropping the ‘S’, used to be considered more

appropriate for describing an organisation’s management of

the full range of its social and environmental impacts. Still

firmly rooted in a ‘less bad’ mindset, though, and a far cry

from new-world sustainability (see below).

corporate social responsibility (csr) – defunct term, long

since abandoned by thought leaders as both inaccurate

(inferring the exclusion of environmental concerns) and

tainted by association with greenwash (see below).

cr 1.0 – shorthand denoting the first generation of corporate

responsibility strategy and communications, typified by PR

driven approaches and old-fashioned corporate philanthropy.

CR is seen as a separate agenda, rather than an integral part

of strategy and culture.

cr 2.0 – shorthand denoting the new generation of sustainability

strategy and communications, which emphasises the use of

sustainability as a fundamental design value to interrogate,

challenge and transform existing practices. Sustainability is seen

as a key strategic driver of innovation and value creation.

11. BrAND AND SuSTAINABILITY GLOSSArY

When it comes to brand and sustainability, a lot of terms get

bandied around by a lot of people in a lot of different ways.

Just to be clear, here’s what I mean when I say...

authenticity – undisputed credibility; the quality of being

genuine. (The Holy Grail of sustainable brands.)

biomimicry – using the natural world—its models, systems,

processes and elements—as inspiration for innovation.

brand – a set of tacit assumptions and preconscious beliefs

that other people hold about your organisation and how it

operates. It’s what they say it is, not you.

closed loop – a sustainable system of production, including

reverse logistics, in which materials may be brought ‘back to

life’ as new products, rather than discarded as waste.

corporate citizenship – term referring specifically to an

organisation’s philanthropic and charitable activities.

Often (wrongly) used as used as an alternative to corporate

responsibility or sustainability (see below).

102 103

hygiene factor – something that is notable and important

only when it is lacking.

licence to operate – the freedom to carry out one’s business.

Increasingly referred to not only in the context of legally granted

permission, but also of gaining broader social acceptance.

materiality – the extent to which an company’s actions on

sustainability are relevant to its sphere of operations, and

important to stakeholders in its chosen markets.

operational excellence – another of the three value disciplines

(see below), typified by incredibly streamlined operations and

superb execution. Competitive advantage is derived by offering

customers dependable quality at low prices.

product leadership – a third value discipline (see below),

typified by excellence in innovation and brand marketing.

Competitive advantage comes from perpetually pushing the

boundaries of design and product performance.

purpose – the reason your business exists (beyond making

money). Why should your people feel inspired to get out of

bed in the morning? If you ceased to exist tomorrow, why

should anyone care?

cradle to cradle – a metaphor to symbolise the cyclical

alternative to our hitherto linear ‘take, make, waste’ model

of manufacturing and consumption. See also value cycle.

culture – basic assumptions about an organisation and

the way it functions, typically shaped by shared values and

learning experiences (‘The way we do things around here’).

customer intimacy – one of three value disciplines (see

below), typified by the cultivation of deep, one-to-one

relationships. Competitive advantage comes from offering

the best total solution, tailored to the customer’s specific

circumstances and requirements.

design – the conscious and intuitive effort by which we

change existing situations into preferred ones.

disruptive innovation – radical innovation that defines

new market space and ultimately supersedes incumbent

services and technologies.

greenwash – superficial or disingenuous attempts to present

companies, products or services as environmentally friendly;

anything that falls into the category of ‘CR as PR’.

104 105

shared value – where value for a business and value for

society is created in one and the same act, by virtue of

connecting core strategy to social progress.

simplicity – the supreme excellence, according to Henry

Wadsworth Longfellow. authenticity and transparency are

impossible without it.

sustainability – a perspective on brand and business strategy

that inextricably links long-term business success with serving

a higher social purpose. In a game of word association,

sustainability should spark the word ‘longevity’ before it

does the word ‘green’.

thick value – see shared value above.

thin value – profits decoupled from the people and resources

impacted by their generation, and which are therefore both

unsustainable and meaningless in terms of the betterment

of society.

transparency – the process of making it simple for stakeholders

to understand and fairly interpret an organisation’s decisions and

conduct. (Note: it has nothing to with the volume of information

made available; it’s about the usefulness of that information

in forming reasonable judgements.)

triple bottom line – a broader means of measuring corporate

performance, seeking to balance the goal of economic growth

with concerns for environmental protection and social equity.

triple top line – a perspective that draws upon biomimicry (see

above) to design products and systems that are intrinsically

beneficial to society and whose constituent materials can be

continually reclaimed and ‘reborn’ as new products.

value cycle – an alternative perspective on the traditional

value chain; emphasises the addition of a ‘back to life’ cycle,

whereby materials may be re-used, reducing their average

cost and amortising the fixed costs of production.

value disciplines – term referring to Michael Treacy and Fred

Wiersema’s theory on how companies can build sustainable

competitive advantage. The central premise: businesses cannot

seek to be all things to all people; they must choose to excel in

a specific dimension of value (either operational excellence,

product leadership or customer intimacy – see above) and

structure themselves accordingly.

106 107

the big idea – robert jonesbiomimicry – janine benyusbrand-driven innovation – erik roscam abbingthe brand gap, zag, the designful company – marty neumeierbuilt to last – jim collins & jerry porrascapitalism as if the world matters – jonathon porrittchange by design – tim brownconfessions of a radical industrialist – ray c. andersoncradle to cradle – bill mcdonough & michael braungartthe design of business, the opposable mind – roger martinthe discipline of market leaders – michael treacy & fred wiersemadrive – dan pinkthe ecology of commerce – paul hawkenemergence, where good ideas come from – steven johnsonthe future of management – gary hamelthe future of the future – richard seymourgood business – steve hilton & giles gibbonslet my people go surfing – yvon chouinardthe new capitalist manifesto – umair haquepredictably irrational – dan arielystrategy for sustainability – adam werbachswitch – chip & dan heaththe tipping point – malcolm gladwell

ask nature – www.asknature.orgforce for good – www.forceforgood.comicebreaker – www.icebreaker.cominterface – www.interfaceglobal.comthe living principles – www.livingpinciples.orgmarks & spencer – plana.marksandspencer.com/aboutthe mix– www.managementexchange.comted talks – www.ted.com/themes/a_greener_future.html

12. AfTErWOrD

This book is only ever going to be a starting point. Whether

you violently agree or disagree with its contents, I hope it

will have inspired you to want to learn more. If it has, then—

as has become customary in the 55-minute guide series—

here’s a list of further reading you may find useful.

If you read no other book on this list, make it

Ray C. Anderson’s confessions of a radical industrialist.

A one-line dedication to Ray cannot possibly do justice to

the influence that the Interface story has had on me and,

when you read it, you’ll understand why. It’s one thing for

the likes of Icebreaker to build sustainability into their

business from the off; it’s quite another to completely

reinvent an established $billion corporation—one built on

converting petrochemicals into textiles to boot.

The reason the story is so important is simple. As Ray

himself said in a fabulous TED Talk, if Interface can transform

itself into a truly sustainable enterprise, then it follows that

any business can. (There, the gauntlet has been laid down!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick jaunt round the world

of brand and sustainability, and look forward to continuing

the conversation with you on the live long and prosper blog.

108 109

Management consultant. Sustainability advocate. Brand strategist. MBA graduate. Integrative thinker. Linguist. Author. Storyteller. Armchair anthropologist. Family man. Rugby nut. Germanophile. Amateur chef. Giant.

Depending on whom you ask, dan gray is a lot of things. While that might seem a little messy to some, he insists there’s method to the madness—all fuelled by a preoccupation with how brand, sustainability and design thinking can be woven together to help organisations create thicker value.

As a consultant, he’s worked with several leading brand and design agencies—including Publicis Consultants and Seymourpowell—and has helped to win new business and deliver major projects with clients including Barclays Capital, Ernst & Young, Etisalat, KPMG, Lloyds Banking Group, Paclantic, Sainsbury’s, Savills and Tetra Pak.

Besides this, maintaining his live long and prosper blog and editing other titles in the 55-minute guide series, he’s also a Visiting Fellow of the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability (ACBAS), an occasional contributor to forceforgood.com, and a co-founder of the CommScrum LinkedIn community.

When he’s not working, he’s most likely to be found mucking around with his little girl, cooking up a storm in the kitchen, or in the stands at the Madejski Stadium cheering on London Irish.

You can reach him at danmgray@yahoo.co.uk, through his blog (danmgray.wordpress.com) or via LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/danmgray).

Far too many business books start with the false premise that offering meaningful insight requires exhaustive detail. They demand a huge investment from readers to wade through all the information provided and draw out what is relevant to them.

In a rapidly changing, time-starved world, it’s an approach that’s getting wronger and wronger. What CEOs and other busy business people desperately need is high-level strategic insight delivered in quick, simple, easy-to-digest packages.

Co-created by dan gray and kevin keohane, that’s exactly what the 55-minute guides are designed to do. Instead of some 300-page pseudo-academic tome, they offer fresh perspectives and must-knows on important topics that can be read from cover to cover in the course of a single morning’s commute or a short plane ride.

In short, they are the antidote to most business books. a quick read, not a long slog. Focused on big ideas, not technical detail. Promoting joined-up thinking, not functional bias. Written to empower the reader, not to make the author look clever.

They’re guided by the simple principle that insight gained per minute spent reading should be as high as possible. No fluff. No filler. No jargon. Just the things you really need to know, written in plain English with clear and simple illustrations.

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